Psalms 139:16

"Forever O Lord Your Word is settled in heaven" - Ps 119:105 "The grass withers, the flower fades But the word of our God stands forever" - Is 40:8 A few summers ago, we went to Paris and in our exploration of the city, we walked into the Pantheon in Paris. Beautiful architecture, white walls, high gothic arched ceilings with a heavy, murky vibe. The Pantheon is essentially a cemetery for notable French figures, leaders and philosophers. One of the first burial monuments we came upon was Voltaire, 18th century French philosopher and writer. Also a strong critic of Christianity and the Scriptures. He famously said that within 100 years of his death, the Bible would become obsolete,  'a museum piece'. Ironically, a century after his death, Voltaire's house and printing press were used to print Bibles by the Evangelical Society of Geneva.  The famous man that once uttered those words has himself became a museum piece. "The grass withers, the flower fad...

Can we ‘walk with Jesus’ and still go to hell? Yes!  That's harsh so let me explain: Judas Iscariot was a disciple of Jesus Christ. As a disciple, this man walked miles alongside Jesus, each and every day. He spent hours with Jesus, every day for three years.  He sat at the table and ate meals with Jesus.  He listened to Bible teachings, directly from the mouth of Jesus Christ.  Judas is a testament to the fact that we can ‘walk with Jesus’ and still be unsaved.  We can be ‘Christian’ by label, partake of Christian activities, hold impressive positions and titles (Judas was the treasurer of Jesus’s earthly ministry), hear solid Bible teaching and still be unchanged on the inside and be heading towards an eternity in hell, separated from God.  The tragic life of Judas has insights to offer us in correct discipleship with Jesus Christ. Here are three lessons we can put into practice in our walk with Christ: ·       ...

"Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David has triumphed " - Revelation 5:5

I’m typing this, in my bed with sheets pulled over my face. It’s been a day. And I still have tasks looming over me that I still have to do but it has been a day, a long day. After four years of  residency, I had finally felt comfortable with the management my adult and pediatric patients in the clinic and on the floor. And today to be back at square one, with a knowledge base that is minimal, that’s hard. I am in the ICU with infants and children with complex cardiac diseases often needing urgent or emergent intervention to save their lives. And to not know.  If I’m being honest, it’s the toughest on my ego. Its bruised today, blue and black from all the hits of inadequacy and feelings of inferiority.  But it's humbling to be here again, face to face with what I lack. But as I stare my inadequacy in the face, I realize a few things. One, that this weakness is not always. Your first year is only the first year once.  First week only comes once. I will not always be...

“ As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus.  Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him.  Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.  Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb. ” Matthew 27: 57-61 Some two thousand years ago, on a Friday evening that felt as ordinary as today, a man by the name of Joseph took Jesus off the cross where He hung. In the dusk, as night fell around him, he cleaned a limp, bruised body. I imagine there were tears running down his face as he washed the bloodied remains of Jesus’s short life. The sting of disappointment, the catch of hurt at the back of his throat. He had placed his reputation, his wealth, his respect on the line; ...

I had a rough night. Few nights  actually. They really didn't tell me how rough residency is.  My skin is thicker that it once was, but there are days when the hurt of the day floods in, often in my car as I drive away from work.  And the tears spill out, and my heart is laid bear.. And there are days that I wish with all my heart that I was anywhere but here.  Here, where my failure is always at the forefront. Where I always feel worn out. Where I hurt and I hide it with a pasted smile. Where I feel so inadequate, not good enough for this task.. Here, where I feel so alone without my family and my closest friends.  And if I am truly being honest with you I started writing this a few weeks ago with a tremor in my hands, and tears streaming down my face. Because if you knew...If you knew only knew how much my heart and my mind and my body hurts .....I'm standing here in this place where I feel so small and so unable,, I'm standing, maybe similar to a place you to...

The hallway of the ICU floor is unfamiliar and cold. Shifts are stressful. Rounds are long. Painful. Attendings are stern. Chaos fills the ICU floor. When there isn't a massive group of people rounding, there are procedures and interventions underway on the ICU floor. With intubating bed 8. Coding bed 1. Placing lines in there. And pulling lines here. Doctors and nurses and pharmacist and Respiratory therapist armed with medicine try and try here in this ICU floor to make a dent in the enemy that is disease.  And sometimes, most often than not, we do not win the battle. We succumb to loss. We succumb to death. Bed 16. We will be withdrawing care tonight.  She's on pressors. On maximum vent settings. She's on continuous dialysis. She is swollen now, her hands and face edematous. She is hardly the woman she was a few weeks ago, few days ago... She reminds me of another ICU room I stood in 10 years ago. My grandmother's. Being just a child then and seeing her...

There's a story in the Bible of an old man who raised his hands as he sat on a mountain top overlooking a fierce battle. And as he lift his hands up to heaven, the battle down below was victorious for his side. But in weariness and fatigue, as his hands went down, his friends down below would be overcome by their enemies. The story goes like this, that when it was realized, his brother and friend came beside him and held his hands high and the battle was ultimately won in victory. (Exodus 17:11)  It makes me think that as I lift my hands in praise to the God above, I am winning the battles assigned to me. As I am here in my little apartment worshiping my God, far from life's problems and life's issues that have not approached me yet, I am solidifying my victory. And not only that, I get, in a way, to lift up the hands that hang low of those miles and countries away. Today, wherever you are, for a minute, raise you hands up. Shout a praise. Know that the battles of tempt...

Last week I got to substitute teach for my sister's Sunday School class. And as last Sunday was Resurrection Sunday, we learned about the resurrection of Jesus Christ and why it is so significant for our faith as Christians. The reason I bring up all this, is because what I learned as we sifted  through the pages of our Bible, I needed in the middle of my day today. In the middle of my 'Friday'. Jesus Christ, God in flesh was born into a dying and wicked world. And that is pretty awesome. (And I certainly do not take that lightly!) But the fact that God in Flesh, died on a rugged cross.  Paired with the fact that three days later God in flesh, rose to life from the grave of death is FUNDAMENTAL for my belief in this God, in this Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:17 "If Christ is not risen, your faith is futile". If Christmas was all that there was to this story, well, it would have been a nice story. It would have been a nice little story. But that ...

Daniel chapter 1 records the life of a fresh-faced teenager in a buzzing city. Daniel chapter 6 records the life of an aged man well into his 80's. And yet, the description is still the same. A man of 'excellent spirit'. I think Daniel's life is worth striving for. A life of consistency. Not only to be a man of God, a woman of God, in your youth.. but as the tides of time change, to be still standing as a man and a woman of God. Have a blessed Sunday.

Healed.  Delivered.  Touched by the hand of God. So that we may arise and serve others. Matthew 9:15 "So He touched her hand... and she arose and served"

Its Friday ( its Friday, Friday...**cue Rebecca Black's song**) and its my dad's birthday! .....and it's Valentine's Day.  I wanted to write about this for sometime and since today is the day that the world celebrates 'love', I thought I'd share with you what God has been teaching me about this concept of love. A few weeks ago, after a conversation that lasted a total of 5minutes about something insignificant, I began to feel my blood boil. My heart went hot with such rage, such hate for people. All people are terrible, I thought. Too judgmental. Too opinionated. Too hurtful. Too selfish and self-centered. And I found myself unable to distance even myself from this distaste; all people, myself included, we are terrible creatures...  Throughout my day, I couldn't shake off this bitterness. So I did what I always do, I journaled. I and God have conversations in journals, we have since I was a child. Usually I can hand th...

You never change, you are the God you say you are; When I'm afraid you calm and still my beating heart. You stay the same, when hope is just a distant thought, You take my pain, and you lead me to the cross I look to you, I see the scars upon your hands. And hold the truth, that when I can't you always can. I'm standing here, beneath the shadow of the cross. I'm overwhelmed that I keep finding open arms. What love is this, that you gave your life for me And made a way for me to know you And I confess you're always enough for me you're all I need So grateful for this love. for this love that never ends, always satisfies, and makes me complete, whole.

For what do I have If I don't have You Jesus? What in this life Could mean any more? You are my rock You are my glory You are the lifter of my head 'Cry of my Heart' Starfield

Come with me for a moment. To a manger. Nestled in a small village on a cloudless starry night. Everything about this moment is beautiful. Well.. almost everything. The setting. The scene. The silence of the wonder, it is all beautiful. Even the pungent smell of animal manure that fills the small manger cannot distill the beauty of this moment. Listen to the stillness of night and hear the angels, the choirs of heaven joining in to hail the arrival of the Prince of peace into the world. This scene plays out in a lowly manger with characters hand-picked and positioned by the Director, God Himself. There surrounded by the crude smells of farm animals sits an ordinary teenage girl, holding  the Son of God in swaddling clothes. No titles or credentials she holds. No trophies. No awards.  Just steadfast. Just faithful. Behind the young virgin mother stands a young carpenter, a man who like his y...

I've been flipping through the pages of the word of God over the last few days for something. Anything . Cause on days when I am desperate to just know God's heart, to see God or hear Him, and I simply cannot, I crave to read something written by Him. Crave for just even a glimpse of a whisper of God. For so many selfish reasons than one.  I've been in this place for a while now. Z calls in a "limbo". So much unknowns lie here. So many uncertainties.  And in this place where I've been, I have been  desperate to grab a hold of something from His Word. For anything I can cling onto. Something I can rest on. Something. Anything. So as I flipped the pages of the Bible this morning, I came to 1 Chronicles. I had been avoiding starting Chronicles.... Cause I judge books. Not by the cover. But by the name. Granted, I know that THIS IS THE WORD of GOD and all books of His Word are God-inspired, God-breathed. I know this. Believe this. But... I still judge a bo...

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. Acts 4:12 Only JESUS CHRIST is powerful enough to save us from the deathly wages of our sins and from the daily messes and mess-ups that hound our lives. ONLY Jesus has that redemptive power to SAVE us and make us whole. ..Make our lives and our minds whole! Rom 10:9 says if you confess + believe = You WILL be SAVED!  I'm not sure about where you stand, but this is where I stand: I stand with the weight of realities, in the midst of struggles with those sins that so easily gets in my life, with heartaches and fears.. But I'm standing on this promise today, standing with this saving knowledge, that Jesus still saves! He STILL is in the business of rescuing us from the middle of  raging storms, from anxieties and fears, from heartache and hidden wounds. Jesus still saves. And it is my belief that as much as I needed to be saved from sin and come to know Him initially, I n...

So, in times that are good, in times that are bad For any time I've had at all, I will be glad And I will boast in the cross, I'll boast in His name I will boast in the sunshine, boast in His reign What's my life if it's not praising You? Another dollar in my bank account of vain pursuit I do not count my life as any value, precious at all Let me finish my race, let me answer Your call -- Lecrae 

"Now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love" I Corinthians 13:13 In life, there are three essentials. As essential as water, food and shelter, there are these three essentials: Faith. Hope. Love. I suspect there will come a day when we will look at our faith, our faith in men, in religion and find it inadequate. Find incongruity in the faith of men, incongruity in what preachers preach and what they actually practice.  Even find ourselves disappointed at our own inability to have faith, to believe in the supernatural or perceive the power of God in the midst of mounting failures, tragedies... I suspect there will come days when hope is hard to reach. Days when our hope is crushed by the weight of our realities.  Weight of all the dreams that lay beyond our grasp. There will nights, where in the darkness we will find ourselves hopeless. But according to 1 Corinthians 13:13, one thing wi...